Monday, May 23, 2016

Never Trump turns on itself

Perhaps frustrated by the impotence of the Never Trump movement, Ben Domenech, publisher of The Federalist, lashed out at fellow Never Trumpers Glenn Beck and Erick Erickson, after Beck and Erickson met with billionaire Mark Zuckerberg.
Beck, Domenech, and Erickson were among the 22 pundits who signed on the "Against Trump" edition of the National Review. Now the backbiting begins.

Zuckerberg's Facebook empire faces backlash from conservatives who suspect his moderators are a bunch social justice warriors. Well, who else are you going to hire for such mundane and humiliating jobs? Petroleum engineers draw six-figure salaries upon graduation. Womyn's studies majors draw flies.

Both men gave Zuckerberg a pass on the complaints after meeting with him. Beck, whose communications empire is crumbling, may be seeking investors. Erickson may be seeking publicity, as usual.Domenech laid into them:

They are stupid and both men should be ashamed at their dull-witted retromingency in making them. Facebook is not being shaken down in any capacity. It is being criticized not as a corporation, but in its chosen role as a media entity. Facebook curates the news; it is a news source for the vast majority of Americans. It put its trending algorithm forward as a source of news, with the false impression given that it accurately represented the trending topics of the Facebook community. Instead, it warped these results according to their ideological framework and their biases to falsely represent the top stories of the day. This is a serious accusation and one Facebook has admitted to as a problem. Yet Beck and Erickson are arguing against Mark Zuckerberg when they say that it doesn’t matter.

Retromingency?

I doubt either man urinates backward, which is what the word means. As a putdown, it misses because what a cool ability that would be.

Of course, Ben Bradlee used it in a letter to media watchdog Reed Irvine, writing to him: “You have revealed yourself as a miserable, carping, retromingent vigilante, and I for one am sick of wasting my time communicating with you.”

Odd that Domenech, a guy who blasts people for collaborating with the liberal media, apes a liberal media icon to insult them.

Domenech ended his tirade:

Attending a meeting with Facebook where you were invited to voice your opinions about their media activity and then voicing them is not an act of shakedown. It is the same thing that would happen in a meeting with the New York Times, The Washington Post, or the mainstream television divisions. It would be an act of foolishness or cowardice to fail to tell these media entities that their reporters were not representative of the country because of their religious, cultural, and political perspectives, as it happens to be true. Facebook is the same way. To say otherwise does not turn conservative media representatives into the Rainbow-PUSH Coalition. If they really believe this and aren’t just posturing, then Beck and Erickson can go to their rooms to play their hit song “Alone in My Principles” and leave the media criticism fray to those of us who believe it is important and valuable, and have the spine to do it.

Meanwhile, in the world outside Never Never Trump Land, The Donald is slightly ahead of Hillary in the polls.

Coming in June -- "Trump the Press: Don Surber's take on how the pundits blew the 2016 Republican race."

Wow, so some people who agree about one thing disagree strongly about something else! Crackerjack reporting, there. I assume, then, that you agree with the opinions of everyone else in the AlwaysTrump camp.

"Retromignency"... what? First off, it's hardly a "cool power"; you could do it too if you want tuck it backwards. And while its primary definition is about animals, you don't need to dig too deep to find that as an adjective applied to humans it's acquired a secondary meaning of "cowardice". Maybe you knew this, or maybe you just stopped looking when you found what you wanted. I imagine you were more of a wordsmith when you didn't have an axe to grind.

Finally, using an adjective that has been used before by a liberal is aping them? I love how you'll use anything, including tactics (Cruz) and now obscure vocabulary, to describe someone as "liberal", while ignoring Trump's actual actions and words. But hey, you have a narrative to keep up.

Well as the poet says"successful rascals are insufferable" and Zuck is both, at least for some on the right. But no appeals will change his mind, I think, even if he was sincere in granting an audience to selected critcs. His massive empire is growing yet larger all over the planet and his concerns are there. But Trump could have an effect on these plans so why not cover that base? The fact remains that most media news is controlled by a handful of very rich men whose employees are servants,and servants do not speak in ways that displease their master. Those who do not want to be the servant of a servant come to places like this blog where they can be free to speak their mind and get insight they will never get from Zuck or his fellow travelers. We are lucky we can do this still and should be grateful.The revolution I prefer is unlikely for awhile so I'm living in present land with Don for now.

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I live in Poca, West Virginia, with my lovely wife of 40 years, Lou Ann. I am an Army veteran and Cleveland State graduate. I retired after 40 years as a newspaperman. In 2016, I published "Trump the Press," which drew rave reviews at Power Line and Instapundit.